


bloom

by Crystalitemoon



Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Day 6!! Appreciation, Flowers, I don't really know - Freeform, In which Kokichi has a mental breakdown or two, Kokichi loves Shuichi too much, Language of Flowers, Lots of mentions of astral beings and the cosmos, M/M, Oma Kokichi Is a Mess, Oma Kokichi Needs a Hug, Out of Character Oma Kokichi, Saiouma Week 2020, Sakura (Cherry Blossoms), Shuichi gives him one don't worry, Shuichi just wants Kokichi to feel loved, Some graphic descriptions, and thats okay, author is a mess, i guess?, it has a bit of body worship, lots of metaphors, sometimes you write overly sweet romance, sorry about that guys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:27:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26381137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crystalitemoon/pseuds/Crystalitemoon
Summary: If Kokichi wasn’t head over heels before then he’s definitely gone by now, spiraling deeper and deeper into this pit he finds himself in, wax wings melting from his back and tumbling, tumbling, weightless yet still falling, with no direction but down and no end in sight.
Relationships: Oma Kokichi/Saihara Shuichi
Comments: 13
Kudos: 161
Collections: Welcome to Saiou week!





	bloom

**Author's Note:**

> Here's my fic (that's admittedly late, i apologize) for the day 6 prompt, Appreciation!!
> 
> I've been doing mostly art, so i thought i might as well write something while i'm at it, y'know? (I also have another picture on the way, I'm basing it off of this fic, so look for that!!!)
> 
> Anyway, this is the first romantic one shot I've ever written, and it's.... It's disgustingly sweet.
> 
> And quite short, actually. Oops.
> 
> Oh well, anything for my boys!
> 
> I hope you all enjoy!!
> 
> Update: I finished the art piece that came with this fic!! You can find it [Here!!t](https://crystalitemoon.tumblr.com/post/629029476092805120/heres-my-post-for-the-6th-prompt-of-saiouweek)

The Sakura Blossoms are blooming.

Soft pinks unfurling against blackish browns, quivering slightly in the slight breeze. Delicate, pliable, snow white lambs of sacrifice born into a world of tainted black. Bittersweet happiness in a temporary solace.

Kokichi is standing on a red bridge, dark against the light of sterility.

He is waiting, waiting, waiting for everything and nothing at all, for time to shift and for the beauty to fade, for the sakura blossoms to fall and wither, as things do. 

(As he did).

or is he waiting for change? For the blossoms to open fully and grace the world with their purity, to bless the eyes of a passerby of their soft innocence and instill peace into their hearts. 

(his heart is blossoming, opening up to another with the same sort of tentativeness as the Sakuras on the trees. How long will it take to wither? A season? Two?)

He waits in silence, and the trees join him in quiet contemplation.

The soft tapping of shoes breaks the tranquility, steps measured and familiar. Each knock of hard leather on mahogany is a hushed roar, tentative, but deafening, in the peaceful loneliness of the sakura garden. 

“Ouma-kun.” His name is uttered by purity, rotting syllables tainting the innocence that comes from the angel behind him. Tasted with curiosity, like a foal learning to walk, hesitant but determined as he rolls the sound from his lips. It sounds wrong on his tongue, the “Ou” too round and the “a” too long, and Kokichi wonders what name he would take for it to sound right from this spirit’s lips.

(The answer is any.)

“Beloved.” He doesn’t dare say his name, doesn’t taste it with his wilted lips and his venomous tongue, doesn’t allow it to sit in his mouth. Something so beautiful doesn’t deserve to be touched by something so putrid, as the light never touches the dark. The Sakura blossoms bow in his wake, tilting to acknowledge the beauty that is standing before them.

(but he is Icarus, and Shuichi is the sun. He is reaching, reaching for something he cannot have. When will he fall?)

The sun hits the saint, lighting him in an ethereal glow. Golden pools of starlight grace him with their attention, framed by the blue sea that wraps around the otherworldly being’s face. Cherry lips open to utter another sound, and Kokichi listens with the rapt attention of a priest to their god. 

“Sorry to call you out here and then be late.” His angel apologizes, and Kokichi can’t help but feel appalled. He is not worth the time, the attention and the apologies of this being, not worthy to be the object of his melting gaze, to be burned by his eyes and to be branded by his touch.  _ Anything _ , he wants to say,  _ Anything for you. I would walk to the ends of the earth for you, would level mountains and dig valleys at your call. Anything. _

“It’s no problem.” He says instead, and it does not convey the turmoil of his feelings. The universe moves to stand besides him, and Kokichi can’t help but bask in his glory. 

He is selfish, is dying, and doesn’t allow himself to get too close.

They stare out in silence, standing side by side, yin and yang, light and dark, united under the canopy of the cherry trees. Shuichi shifts besides him, tense, as if building up for a supernova, a burst of stars and life and a new universe. His nervousness begins to affect Kokichi’s timid mind, and he begins to worry about the object of their meeting. Was Shuichi going to leave him? Tell him about his impurity, about his unworthiness to stand with something so holy, and leave him with honeyed words under the blossoming trees? 

“What are we here for?” Kokichi asks, quiet like the petals falling from the branches, and Shuichi jumps, as if Kokichi had uttered a deafening roar. He settles not soon after, running a trembling hand through his hair, and Kokichi can see the anxiety settling into the melted gold of his eyes.  _ What is he afraid of? _

“Ah! S-sorry.” He says, and Kokichi tilts his head.  _ You apologize too much,  _ he wants to whisper,  _ you apologize too much for something so sacred.  _ Instead, he stays silent, and allows his star to compose himself. Kokichi draws his decaying branches closer to himself, paper white petals against his cherry black heart.

“Um, I called you out here because…” Shuichi hesitates, then continues, sweet and unending and everything that Kokichi holds dear, cosmoses breathed to life by his words, and  _ oh _ , he’s not paying attention anymore. 

“Sorry.” Kokichi says, useless vibrations falling out of his mouth, nothing he says is ever good enough. “Sorry, I lost focus for a second. Could you say that again?” His angel, ever so kind, so forgiving, does not grow annoyed. 

“I, uh. I wanted to tell you something.” He repeats, and Kokichi grows cold. The flowers shiver in the foreboding wind, and he can feel change weighing heavy in the air.

“Oh.” Kokichi replies, and his mouth is dry. He licks his poisoned lips, smearing his toxic saliva upon the two wilted petals. “Oh.”

“I-it’s nothing bad! Promise!” Shuichi stutters, full and rosy like the flowers blooming around them. He’s holding his hands behind his back, using his body to shield Kokichi’s inquisitive view. When did he hide his hands? Or was he always doing so, and Kokichi was too wrapped up in his own decomposition to notice?

(His flesh is melting, bones cracking and grinding to dust, and he is rotting underneath the pressure of the ground above him. Flowers take root in his organs and they grow, grow from his blood and tears, unbidden and unwanted. New Life springs from his death, and so forth.)

“Well, then? What is it?” Kokichi feigns excitement, bright eyed and bouncy but so cold, a thousand years of rotting taking its toll. Poisonous lies run from his lips like rivers of acid, and he has long since begun his decay. Sickly alabaster petals and a hollow trunk.

Shuichi seems to soften at his lie, smiling bittersweetly as he shakes his head. “I need you to be honest, Ouma-kun.” He says, and of course, of course Shuichi would have known. Shuichi, who has stayed by his side since day one, who woke up in that cold, dark room and held him as he cried, poured his heart out for him to see, who he could never lie correctly to afterwards. Shuichi, the Ultimate detective, and thief of his heart.

Kokichi nods and steals himself for rejection, for a lifetime spent without the sun, empty and alone. The cold feeling only grows, as if he was already in the shadows, and he keeps his face carefully blank. He waits and waits and waits, draws out time to spend just a fraction more of eternity with this spirit. Shuichi moves, and Kokichi is ready, filled with resignation and accepting of the future . The air quivers with anticipation, and petals begin to fall.

  
  


Out from behind Shuichi’s back comes a bouquet of the most beautiful flowers Kokichi has ever seen.

  
  


Whites and pinks and greens mix together prettily, long slender petals sitting beside shorter calyxes in perfect harmony. A soft fragrance fills the air, from the flowers in the bouquet, tied so beautifully with a bow and shrouded with lavender paper. Lilies and Roses, his favorite.

Kokichi is stunned, locked in place for a solid second. He waits for the punchline, the “Gotcha!” and maybe a teasing smile, for Shuichi to deflect and tell him who it’s for, who the objects of his affections are. Does he mean to ask him if the flowers look nice enough for his lover? He hesitates, and waits for a second.

But then a second turns to more and Shuichi is still standing with his eyes closed, blush prominent on his cheeks as he holds out the flowers. It takes a moment for Kokichi to realize that he wants him to take them.

_ Oh,  _ Kokichi thinks as a heavy blush crawls up his neck,  _ oh, those are for me. _

Hesitantly, with trembling hands, he reaches for the fauna. Their hands touch for a mere fraction of a second, and it’s so cliche that it hurts, but it burns, it burns like the wildfire in his chest, in his throat and in his eyes. The touch lingers for longer than it should, and Kokichi brings the flowers to his chest. 

Shuichi opens his eyes and he looks so adoring, so soft and so fond of Kokichi that he can’t stand it, tries to quell the storm rising within him, feelings and words and abstract thoughts bubbling up his throat and threatening to spill out of his mouth.

“Why?” he croaks, and a thousand words go unsaid.  _ Why me?  _ goes unspoken, but he knows Shuichi can hear every word, weighing heavy in the air like stones. 

_ Why would someone like you, so pure, so beautiful, so perfect, like someone as ruined as me?  _

__ He doesn’t say,  _ You are the light that shines upon me, and I am the darkness that threatens to swallow you whole. Are you not afraid? _ , but Shuichi knows all the same. (He knows, he knows,  _ he knows _ ) He is choking, drowning in his own emotions while Shuichi just stares, patient and quiet.

And Kokichi wants to believe. He wants to believe this is real, that this isn’t some sort of joke the cosmos is playing on him, that the flowers in his hands aren’t burning through his flesh, peeling back the cracked skin to reveal the decaying muscles of his flowering heart. 

Kokichi wonders if it’s possible to feel so light yet so heavy at once.

Shuichi tilts his head, like a counselor would to a traumatized child, and says “Why what? Do you not like them?”. Patient, patient, patient, drawing his answers from him like nipping petals off a bud, one by one.  _ He loves me, he loves me not. _

(Is it a game? Or is it real?)

He swallows, avoiding the gaze of the blazing sun, and stares down at the blooms with apprehension. Roses and lilies, Roses and Lilies. Pure love and devotion.

(A promise of forever)

“Why me?” Kokichi hears himself say, his head a thousand miles underwater. “I mean, look at me!” He laughs, bitter and full of self loathing as he gestures to his decomposing corpse. “I’m disgusting. I’m a fucking compulsive liar and a horrible person, I’ll-” He swallows again, and the burst of energy leaves him just as fast, leaving him hollow and full of rotting flowers. “I’ll ruin you. You’re good and i’m just so…”

“Beautiful?” Shuichi cuts in, cuts sharp through his words and leaves him breathless, raw, vulnerable. Desperately trying to stop himself from bleeding out for the world to see, wretched and black and pitiful.

“Wonderful? Perfect?” Shuichi continues, and Kokichi wants him to stop, stop, stop, wants to tell him to  _ stop lying to him,  _ but he searches the spirit’s eyes and sees no trace of the toxins that taint his own soul. “Kind?  _ Brave? _ ” Kokichi flushes ever so further, shrinking into himself as the praise hits his ears. It’s stupid, it’s stuipid, useless clatter of noise in the air, it shouldn’t affect him but it does, it does and he  _ hates it. _

“You’re the bravest, most hardworking person I know.” he says, and Kokichi wants to scream, wants to slap him, wants to kiss him, wants it to stop.

“You draw light around you, like even the sun itself wants to hug you.” he says, and it’s  _ lies, lies, lies  _ but it’s not, it’s not,  _ it’s not _ . 

(kokichi doesn’t know which one hurts more.)

“Why don’t you see what i see?” Shuichi is soft, reaching forward as if to touch him with a reserved sadness that makes magma boil in Kokichi’s gut. “Why can’t you see how perfect you are? How selfless, how kind, how wonderful?” He pauses, then whispers, “How beautiful?”

Kokichi hides himself in the fauna, in between the healthy sprigs of green, and he can’t blend his rotting petals well enough. He hugs the bouquet closer, tries his best to disappear, and doesn’t look the bluenette in the eyes. “I’m not.” He mutters, and his lovely spirit becomes impossibly sadder.

“But you are.” Shuichi takes his hands, and he says it with such conviction that Kokichi almost wants to believe him, but the burning of his skin reminds him that some things aren’t to be touched by his toxic hands.

“Your eyes are like shining amethysts.” They’re both blushing now, and  _ oh no, he is not doing this to him. Not this.  _ He can tell Shuichi knows how painfully cliche his words are, but he powers through with an admirable sort of determination. 

“Your skin is just the most beautiful white, your hair is curly and cute and it looks so soft and all I want to do is run my hands through your hair, and I know you hate your body but I think its perfect, every dip and every curve is beautiful to me and I just want to hold you. I love the way your voice gets soft in the mornings or when you’re around me, I love the way your eyes light up when your happy and how when you blush it paints your skin the prettiest of pinks and-” Shuichi finally takes a breath, and Kokichi almost pleads with him,  _ no more, no more,  _ he’s already a puddle on the floor, melted and gooey and soft, pathetic and weak at the knees.

“When I’m around you, I can’t quite breathe.” 

If Kokichi wasn’t head over heels before then he’s definitely gone by now, spiraling deeper and deeper into this pit he finds himself in, wax wings melting from his back and tumbling, tumbling, weightless yet still falling, with no direction but down and no end in sight.

(or was he always falling from the start?)

He looks down at the flowers, pure and sweet in his hands.

"They're beautiful." He whispers in lieu of a reply, and starshine begins to fall from his eyes, pouring out like rivers of rain on a field of flowers. Shuichi relaxes and smiles, and he is fond, fond, fond, and it only makes the dew drip faster down the petals, down his alabaster cheeks and into his roots. 

(His decaying heart drinks up the moisture with reverence, grateful after a long drought. Full, full, fuller, the flower is in full bloom)

The owner of his heart stands before him, two worlds apart and thousands of words between them. But suddenly, Shuichi doesn’t feel so far away anymore.

“Kokichi.” His angel sighs, and he draws in a swift breath because it sounds so right.  _ This is so right. _

“Shuichi.” He tastes, and for the first time, doesn’t burn it with his venom. It tastes like purity, sounds like a clear bell on a sunny day, and Kokichi grows desperate, dependent, wants nothing more than to say it for all of forever and beyond. “Shuichi, Shuichi,  _ Shuichi-”  _

And they're pulling together, colliding like long destined stars drawn together after an eternity apart, Galaxies and nebulous space exploding around their love. Kokichi drinks, drinks from the cup that does not belong to him, greedy and selfish, yet pours himself into the cup all the same. They are unrelenting, always giving and always taking, until there is nothing left and then some, like starving gods of war.

One day they will wither, will fall like the blossoms of the tree and rot into nothingness, into darkness and away from each other, spiraling out of love like comets from the sky, burning and burning until nothing remains. Kokichi is sure of it. He is sure.

But, in the arms of his lover under the dying light of the sun, he lets himself believe that this is his forever. An eternity spent as one.

  
  
  
  


From the wilted flower sprouts another tree, another symbol of love.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading this!! I hope you all enjoyed this as much as I enjoyed writing it.


End file.
